Cummins aims to banish League final nightmare

ONE man with a lot on his mind this week is Tipperary goalkeeper Brendan Cummins.

And no, it’s not the hurley-sponsorship controversy that currently rages, though he admits to being one of those in the spotlight.

“As far as I’m concerned, that’s only a sideshow, I wish there was far more coverage of the great game we had last Sunday, rather than on what fellas had on their hurleys. I don’t think any of us knew what we were letting ourselves in for. But it doesn’t make a difference, my focus is totally on Kilkenny.”

And rightly so. The last time these two sides met in competition, the NHL final of early May, five goals thundered past the giant Tipperary keeper. It was the most that he’s ever conceded in over nine years of League action. “Bad memories alright, a lot of goals that day, I’d say they’re reinforcing the nets above in Croke Park this week! That was like a tournament game, we’ll get a goal, ye get a goal. Kilkenny had their All-Ireland-winning six backs that day and conceded five as well, while we had a few new faces, so we weren’t really settled. Still, conceding five goals was very disappointing, but it was that kind of a game.”

With five goals being scored in last Sunday’s first semi-final, the likelihood is that goals will probably feature strongly again this weekend, in both semi-finals. A lot of reasons for this, reckons Cummins, is that the Croke Park pitch is longer and wider offering more space inside for the forwards, but perhaps above all, there’s the controversial new rubber-centred ball.

“There’s huge pressure on full-back lines now. Puck-outs are dropping consistently inside 45’s, even from players who wouldn’t normally have been hitting them that long while clearances are travelling further.

“They’re also bouncing high, you could see it in the last goal Wexford got last Sunday, the ball dropped inside, hopped over shoulder-high. It’s almost like a squash ball.”

So players, keepers especially, have to be on their toes, quite literally?

“Yes, it goes much higher, and much faster. Mitch Jordan’s goal against Cork went like a rocket, and he didn’t even appear to swing that hard at it,” he said.

Cummins is thankful to be part of Sunday’s showdown. Four years ago, he nearly lost his leg in a horrendous injury, an scar marked thigh injury which almost came back to haunt him midway through the win against Offaly two weeks ago.

It is hard to imagine that it would affect a player who still, even with the new ball, throws himself fearlessly and recklessly in the path of anything struck from close range. But it did.

“I got a fright when it started to swell. The first thing I noticed was that it was cut, then it started to bulge out. I hoped it would be okay, I wasn’t feeling any pain but then I have no feeling in it anyway. Then I tried to squat, but I could only get down a little bit on my haunches, and that’s when I got worried. It was getting bigger and bigger, so I called in Gerry Sullivan, he put a bit of spray on it. That didn’t help, it kept getting bigger, and that was when I got really worried. I lay down, called them in and they had a good look at it. The reason it swelled so much and so rapidly was that the netting that surrounds the muscle inside, under the skin, is gone, removed in the operations.”

Removed the netting, but in all probably, saved the leg. The original injury, which came in 1999, had been innocuous enough. Cummins suffered a knee in the thigh and a resultant dead leg. Rest for a few days was the cure. It was anything but.

“I didn’t do anything further about it until the Tuesday when I went to hospital. They looked at it, tried to drain the blood off it but it wouldn’t come out. They said it would be all right, that it would sort itself out, but it didn’t. By the Thursday, the pain was too much, the ambulance came to the house and whisked me to hospital.

“I met Peter Murchin there for the first time (Tipperary team doctor), he said they’d have to operate straight away. What had happened was that I’d got a blood-clot in my thigh, and that caused the veins at the bottom of my foot to collapse on each other and there was no blood going below my knee. So at that stage, it had got pretty serious, I got a wicked fright.”

So you see, Brendan Cummins has had far more real things to worry about than a name on a hurley, has real worries also for this Sunday.

“If you have the likes of Henry Shefflin, DJ Carey, Martin Comerford, Eddie Brennan, facing you, every one of those has goal in their mind, nothing else. They’re among the top forwards in the country, and people are talking about the inexperience of our full-back line, Paul Curran and Martin Maher in particular. But every single one of us, the youngest to the oldest faces a huge challenge this Sunday to try and contain Kilkenny. And that’s all I’m worried about.”